Studies in Vedanta Essays in Honour of Professor S.S. Rama Rao Pappu

Professor Rama Rao Pappu, Who has been teaching philosophy in US Universities since the sixties founded the "International Congress of Vedanta" in 1986 at Maimi University, Oxford, Ohio, USA. Vedanta Congresses initiated and organized systematically and selflessly by Dr. Pappu during the past nineteen years have played a very productive and positive role. Most of the essays included here are the papers presented by the contributors at the "Fifteenth International Congress of Vedanta" apart from the invited essays contributed by Professor Pappu's friends and admirers in India and abroad.

Essays in this volume have been arranged in six sections covering the areas of Vedanta Metaphysics, Advaita Epistemology and Ethics, Schools of Vedanta and other systems, Global Parallels and finally Vedanta and the Contemporary World. Both intellectually stimulating and academically entertaining, this volume contains analytic discussions on Sankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Vallabha and Tyagaraja. Enlightening articles on Radhakrishnan, Sri Satya Saibaba and Sunderlal Bahuguna are also included. As a whole, covering the concepts of Adhyasa, Saksi, and Jivan-mukti, perspectives of Sruti, Yukti, and Tarka, discussions on Yoga, Tantra and Music and the East-West Parallels have culminated in Sartrean Existentialism and Chinese Dao.

About the Author:

Professor P. George Victor has been on the faculty of philosophy at Andhra University since 1981, from which he earned MA earlier (1978) and PhD later (1986). Padma Vibhushan Professor K. Satchidananda Murthy was his mentor, under whose direction his doctoral dissertation on the social Philosophy of Vedanta, a study of the Prasthana-trayi and Sankara's commentaries was published in 1991. His published books include - Life and Teachings of Adi Sankaracarya (2002) and Moral Science (1994). He is the editor for "Andhra University Philosophical Studies" series and has edited Saints and Gurus, Social Relevance of Philosophy, and Teaching Philosophy in the Twenty-first Century.

Professor V.V.S. Saibaba did his PhD (1985) on Faith and Devotion in Buddhism, directed by Professor K. Satchidananda Murty. Since 1981 he was on the faculty of philosophy at Andhra University. From 1987 to 1989, he was Head in the centre for Mahayana Buddhist Studies at Nagarjuna University, where he taught Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Texts. He has participated in many international and national conferences, seminars and summer schools, and has contributed several research articles in Indian and foreign journals. Professor Saibaba is the author of Theravada Buddhist Devotionalism in Ceylon, Burma and Thailand; Faith and Devotion in Theravada Buddhism; and Facets of Buddhist philosophy: Theravada and Mahayana.